Fighting The Crowd Up Mount Tsukuba

On the Friday of Golden Week I headed out with my friend Jesse and his friend Aki to Mount Tsukuba. It was a beautiful day. We drove from Mito to Tsukuba, an hour and a half journey, but due to traffic it was at two and a half hours. After finally parking outside the mountain we stretch to the sounds of loud speakers playing yodeling music. All around the entry path is an amusement park with frog statues all around. We started up the mountain. The path was rugged, and slick from the rain from the day before. At some point a path had been planted but the Earth shifted the stones to leave the trail completely uneven. But clear enough to climb up. There were a few people trickling in as we climbed up, but at the half way point we find a small sized group sitting around at the half way point. Not to be detoured we pressed forward but not too far, the crowds started thickening. And before long up the climb, things slowed down. And then we were just standing in line, on up a mountain! We could see the mountain top, just a short distance away but the line was at a stand still. The issue occurred to me not only was us and the crowd climbing up but there was a cable car going up and down. That not only was the cable car carrying people down off the mountain but it was also carrying people UP the mountain. I felt foolish standing in that line up a mountain and not having that simple fact occur to me sooner. Shortly after Jesse voiced that he speculated that it would take us an additional two hours just to finish the climb to the summit. That was about that. We decided that Golden Week wasn't the time to climb Mt. Tsukuba. So with the summit in sight, and a long crowd of folks between us and it, we turn our backs and start climbing back down the mountain. On the way down before reaching the half way point we passed by, I suspected, 400 people all standing in line to reach the summit. It was a thrill to climb Mt. Tsukuba, and I really would like to return to complete the summit. We left Mito at 8:30 and returned 5:00, truly Golden Week isn't the time to climb a mountain.